SIOP Annual Conference 2004
Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers
Chicago, Illinois

April 2-4, 2003
Preconference Workshops and Special Events April 1

Welcome from the Conference Chairs

Jeff McHenry
Microsoft Corporation

Donald Truxillo
Portland State University

Welcome to the 19th Annual SIOP Conference and workshops! Chicago is a special place for SIOP. It was the location of our first conference in 1986, planned by a group of visionary SIOP leaders who believed that they could create an outstanding program and event for our membersand then hoped desperately that a few hundred people would show up! The first conference was a tremendous successa great program, a great gathering of excited members, and a great city for partying and celebrating. Im sure those visionaries had high hopes for the future of the SIOP conference. But I also suspect very few of them envisioned that the conference would grow as it has, not just in terms of attendance, but also in terms of quality and in terms of the diversity of sessions and activities offered at the conference.

For 2004, youll see that we once again have a strong line-up of conference activitiesoutstanding preconference workshops, an extremely strong program with many more interactive sessions and special events, fantastic tutorials, and numerous opportunities to network and connect with friends. As you read through this publication, youll find articles that provide a more in-depth description of all of our major conference activities. But I do want to direct your attention to a few special highlights.

The Continuing Education & Workshops Committee headed by Luis Parra has prepared 12 exceptional preconference workshops for Chicago. These professional development opportunities have been planned with the generous input and feedback from many of you and are being carefully designed to bring you the most up-to-date thinking and practice in our discipline. Please note the article listing the extraordinary panel of nationally and internationally recognized expertsboth from inside and outside the field of I-Owho will be leading this years workshops. Be sure to register early to ensure your first choice: You wont want to miss these!

We have a great program planned for Chicago, thanks to Rob Ployhart and the many, many volunteers working with him on the Program Committee. There will be many great symposia, panel discussions, roundtables, and invited addresses. In response to your feedback, weve increased the space allocated to posters to make poster conversations easier and richer. We also have several new and exciting session formats. These include: 

• A set of interrelated sessions advancing the science and practice of emergency response, public safety, occupational health, and related topics on Sunday. 
• An Identity/Visibility session, where the customers of our science and practice will describe how they perceive SIOPs role in the world of business (and how we can enhance our visibility). 
• A series of gatherings called a Community of Interests. These are informal, 50-minute get-togethers focused on a particular topic. SIOP members can come and go as they like, and chat with others conducting similar research projects or working on similar practical projects. 
• We are expanding the number of interactive poster sessions to run throughout the conference. 

Note that the conference will run through mid-day Sunday, with some very strong sessions planned for Sunday morning. 

Lisa Finkelstein and team have arranged a great line-up of tutorials for Sunday morning. The tutorials present a terrific opportunity to drill deep into some hot research and methodology topics. These sessions have been a very popular addition to the program during the past few years, with content that will be rich for those working in both academic and practitioner settings.

Karen Barbera and Irene Sasaki will manage the Conference Placement Center for the 2004 conference. The Placement Center will once again operate completely online. Those who register with the Placement Center will have access to resums and job descriptions on the Web site before, during, and after the conference. As we did in Orlando, computers and printers will be available on-site to use to search for jobs and candidates. These resources are limited to Placement Center users only. An interview room will also be available again in Chicago. If youre in the market for a new job or looking for candidates to fill your opening, register for the Placement Center early!

Alyson Margulies has arranged for us to have a tour of McDonalds world-renowned Hamburger University training facility. Located at McDonalds corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois, Hamburger University has become the destination for McDonalds employees around the world to learn about quality, service, cleanliness and valuethe core principles of McDonalds. In addition, training that is taught all over the world originates from Hamburger Universitys field implementation and design departments. Come join us for a day at McDonalds Hamburger University to learn about:

• The history of Hamburger University (HU)
• How the HU curriculum is determined
• How McDonalds recruits and trains instructors
• How training is implemented in the regions

For those of you who intend to eat your way through Chicago but dont want to return home five pounds heavier, youll want to participate in the annual SIOP Fun Run. Former Chicago residents and longtime running enthusiasts Pat and Paul Sackett are planning this years 5K race. Participants will be rewarded with refreshments, a classic SIOP souvenir T-shirt, and the knowledge that theyve done something truly virtuous in the midst of this years conference.

One other special event we have planned for this year's conference is a Saturday workshop for high school psychology teachers in the Chicago area introducing them to I-O psychology and providing them with ideas for integrating I-O psychology into their curriculum. This event is funded by the SIOP Foundation and is by invitation only. Please help greet and welcome these teachers during the conference on Saturday and answer any questions they may have about I-O psychology. 

Elsewhere in this announcement, theres more detail about the workshops, the tutorials, the Placement Center, and the fun run. Read up and get registered!

Last but not least, wed like to offer our thanks to all the people involved in helping to ensure that our conference in Chicago will be a rousing success. Lee Hakel and our top-notch Administrative Office staff do the lions share of planning for conference logistics and ensuring that the facilities are up to our demanding standards. There is no team more conscientious than Lee and her staff. Another group that contributes richly to our conference is our exhibitors and sponsors. Our exhibitors help us stay current on the latest trends in I-O theory and practice, and both our exhibitors and sponsors provide generous financial support for the conference. Finally, wed like to thank and recognize all of you, our SIOP members, who volunteer your time and participation in the conference. Member involvement is the key to the success of any professional conference, and no professional society gets more support from its members than SIOP. Members plan workshops, review conference submissions, organize the Placement Center, and manage special events like the tour and the fun run. And of course the rich content of the workshops and conference sessions, including tutorials, is provided almost exclusively by members. We have a record number of volunteers involved in planning and running this years conference and a record number of submissions for conference sessions. All of this volunteer work and support helps ensure that the conference is well tailored to our membership. Thanks to the hundreds of volunteers and the thousands of volunteer hours invested, the 2004 SIOP Conference will be another great event!

Here are some reminders to help you in planning for this years conference.

Reminders

Conference registration: You have two registration options. First, you can register online. All of you who have supplied an e-mail address to SIOP will receive instructions from the SIOP Administrative Office when the registration site comes online. Alternately, you can fill in the registration form in this publication and send it with your registration payment to the Administrative Office. Be sure to indicate which conference activities youll be participating inthe conference itself, workshops, the preconference tour, Placement, the fun run, and the Sunday tutorials.

Conference registrants who cancel their registration on or before March 10, 2004, will receive a refund of the conference registration fee, less a $60.00 administrative fee. Please refer to SIOPs Cancellation Policy for Workshops and Cancellation Policy for Tutorials in the workshop and tutorial articles in this publication.

Hotel reservations: Chicago will be a popular location for our conference. We are once again expecting 3,000 conference attendees. So please be sure to make your hotel reservations as soon as you decide to attend the conference. We will be holding conference sessions only in our conference headquarters hotel, the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. We also have rooms blocked for conference attendees at the Embassy Suites, which is just one block away.

We know you have many hotel options in Chicago. Wed like to encourage you to stay in one of the hotels where we have rooms blocked. Weve negotiated very competitive rates at these hotels, youll find them very convenient for participating in conference events, and youll be right in the heart of downtown Chicago dining, shopping, and nightlife. In a TIP article, Donald explains more about why we think the conference hotels are a great deal and how your decision to stay at a conference hotel benefits SIOP.

Well maintain up-to-date information about hotel room availability on our SIOP Web site at http://www.siop.org/Conferences/04Con/HOTELINFO.aspx.   

Travel: SIOPs official airline carrier is American Airlines. Call American Airlines Meeting Services at 1-800-433-1790 with Discount Code 9534AH. See Directions and Transportation Information for details.

There are a variety of transportation options from Chicago OHare Airport to downtown Chicago. Taxis will cost $3540 one way, while shuttles will be about half that cost. You can also take the CTA blue line train from OHare to downtown Chicago for $1.50, although the Sheraton and Embassy Suites are both close to a mile from the nearest blue line station. Complete information about ground transportation options is available at http://www.ohare.com/ohare/ground_transport/ground.shtm. See also Directions and Transportation Information for additional details and for those traveling from Midway Airport.  

Chicago nightlife: Chicago offers world-class entertainment and dininggreat restaurants, great theatre, great comedy, great music, and rumor has it theres even great shopping. Excellent online city guides are available from the Chicago Tribune (http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/), Citysearch (http://chicago.citysearch.com/), and Digital City (http://www.digitalcity.com/chicago/) to help you plan your evenings activities. In addition, the online guide from Center Stage offers up-to-date information about arts and entertainment in Chicago (http://centerstage.net/).

Conference information: The SIOP Web site will be updated frequently with conference information, hotel information, and links to other sites of interest. Be sure to check http://www.siop.org/Conferences/Confer.aspx regularly for conference news and updates. If you have questions that are not answered, visit the Need Information? page for names and contact information of people who can be of help.  Please feel free to contact either of us at jmchenry@microsoft.com or truxillod@pdx.edu.

We look forward to seeing you in Chicago!

Registration Book Table of Contents